Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lettow, post: 770659, member: 6986&quot;]I will give you the short version.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>MPC were issued for use by US military personnel and other authorized users for use in US military establishments.&nbsp; The purpose of MPC was to allow US personnel to be paid in US dollars but not in a form that would be generally accepted in the host country.&nbsp; It served two main goals -- (1) cut down on blackmarketing by allowing MPC to be converted into the local currency but not the other way around, and (2) protect the local economy by preventing the US dollar from supplanting the local currency in commerce.&nbsp; MPC was initiated because the amount of dollars being sent home by US military personnel in Europe and Japan immediately after WWII was greater than the aggregate amount of pay.&nbsp; In other words, more money was coming into the US from the theaters than was being sent out.&nbsp; That was bad.</p><p><br /></p><p>Allied Military Currency (AMC lire, yen, marks and schillings) was issued in occupied countries and bears the denomination of the local currency.&nbsp; It also seved two purposes.&nbsp; First, as with all occupation currencies, it forced the occupied country to paythe cost of the occupation.&nbsp; AMC was paid out to locals for requisitioned goods, salaries for local employees of the military government and for US troop pay in the occupied countries.&nbsp; Because occupation currency is legal tender in the occupied country, the occupied country is responsible for redeeming the currency issued by the occupier.&nbsp; The US learned a disastrous lesson after WWI where occupation currency was not used.&nbsp; The Axis powers also used occupation currency, most notably the Japanese Invasion Money.</p><p><br /></p><p>While AMC and MPC were issued at the same time in some countries, they were for entirely different purposes.&nbsp; Some people say that MPC was derived from AMC.&nbsp; This is entirely untrue.</p><p><br /></p><p>The franc notes you pictured are a different story altogether.&nbsp; Allied military personnel during the war were paid in the local currency.&nbsp; When the Allies were preparing for the Normandy invasion, they possessed insufficient stock of French paper money to issue to the troops.&nbsp; The temporary fix was to print their own francs for use in France.&nbsp; These are the supplemental franc notes printed by Forbes of which the two franc is an example.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>While these notes look like the AMC occupation currency issued in Germany, Italy, etc., the French notes were not occupation currency.&nbsp; The Allied countries that issued these notes to their troops set up an account to credit the post-war French government with the equivalent in their own country&#039;s currency of the amount of francs issued.&nbsp; In other words, the other Allies paid the French for the franc notes each country issued.&nbsp; There was considerable controversy when these notes were first issued.&nbsp; Degaulle refused to sanction them and they were issued by the authority of General Eisenhower as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces.&nbsp; They were accepted by the French populace and were eventually made legal tender by DeGaulle in August 1944.&nbsp; The supplemental francs circulated side by side with the Bank of France notes issued before and during the war.</p><p><br /></p><p>The 500 franc note was printed in Britain for the French after the war.&nbsp; They were done by the English printers because the Bank of France was unable to print sufficient currency on their own because of a lack of materiel.&nbsp; They have no military significance.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in